The regulation of visa-free immigration to Ukraine bases in the resolution of the cabinet of ministers Nr. 150 – 15.02.2010 and caused in the recent history a lot of confusion and problems at execution of this rules, unfortunately.

This resolution states in Nr.2 sentence 2 that there is no obligation for a foreigner to register himself at state immigration office if his stay does not exceed 90 days within a period of 180 days AFTER THE FIRST ENTRY.

Also this rules are stating, that the number of entries and exists to and from territory of Ukraine are NOT limited and that the entry- and exit-day have to be added for the calculation of the 90 days – example: entry at 14.03.2014 and exit at 18.03.2014 would be 5 days!

Problems in reality is being cause very often by the definition of “since the first entry”!

There is also no definition, if this limitation is meant to the person itself or to the identity document which the person is showing to the border authorities of Ukraine (some countries allow their citizens to have 2 passports).

The state migration service (www.dmsu.gov.ua) unfortunately also did no rules for using this resolution in reality. And till now there are also no court decisions about this questions!

However – there are already cases known in which foreigners had to pay penalties when they wanted to exit from territory of Ukraine and were accused of exceeding the 90 days within the period of 180 days!

In reality there is a broad-scaled experience about execution of the resolution by the single bordercrossings since beginning of 2014!

For example the airport Kyiv-Zhulyany (IEV – Wizzair etc.) looks for the FIRST IMMIGRATION STAMP in the shown passport, calculates manually revolving 180 day-periods from this date and is adding all periods of stay to calculate if the 90 days are exceeded.

At airport Kyiv-Borispil or at the landside bordercrossing points of Rava-Rusa or Krakovets however just exceeding of 90 days in ONE ROW is being checked – for example:01.10.2013-15.01.2014!

A general database for checking the 90/180-rules for foreigners still does not exist due to actual informations of border-troops. Exception- Georgian citizens!

The documentation of all entries and exits for foreigners is done due to the passport-number and not like at Ukrainian citizens with the personal identifier number!

Legal subsumption: Due to the very broad-scaled rules in CabMin Nr. 150 of 15.02.2010 the more legal safe interpretation seems to be the one of the bordertroops at airport Kyiv-Zhulyany.

Also important to know: Bordertroops are NOT ALLOWED to fix and to execute penalty payments by themselves! If this should happen in your case, we highly recommend you to insist on fixation of a protocol and a receipt of the payment including the name and the seal of the border authority. If this should be denied, please demand the officer of the border authorities to show his ID-card and make a notice of the datas or insist on consultation of his commanding officer. This should already solve a lot of problematic situations. If not – it’s the base for approving of penalties at court.